I have to admit to feeling somewhat crabby today, I am not sure why because the weather was absolutely lovely, a gorgeous autumn day. Could have been that I had to book a flight to Spain for Simon online and the bloody website kept disappearing, why people think that doing things online is quicker I am blowed if I know, it always seems to take me hours of frustration and effort.

The birds flew well on the whole, some very well, others not quite so good. We are having to fly a fair number of them between demonstrations which is OK, but when people are watching it can add pressure and I have to say it really pisses me off when people laugh if a bird does not work, I get really snappy, after all I wonder what they would say if I laughed when they were at work and something went wrong.......... oh dear your computer just crashed and you lost a whole mornings work - what a laugh, or opppppppps just broke that thing you were trying to make - what a laugh................ see what I mean!!

The little Long-eared Owl however was a dream today, he is going to be very exciting, he is following on and going into trees which is great although he may well get a name change as Bobby Jo is definitely not my choice or favourite. He looks wonderful sitting up in a tree and his flight pattern is enchanting.

Sedge had great fun today in the old aviary that we are going to replace, he was digging and climbing and jumping down from 18 inches of block work, mainly landing on his chin, but apparently enjoying himself as he did it several times. He is very wary of the pond though! He got a swift clip round the ear yesterday when he ran in to the Ural Owl (Oath is his name) on the ground, and ran back to the other dogs yelping, we all ignored him and he sat with the others good as gold and then ran up afterwards, so all was forgiven.

Dinah and I watched a bit of Mama Mia on her last evening here - it was so bad that even I could not watch it, so we gave up and went to bed early. The weather is due to stay good for the next few days, I hope it lasts over the weekend and into next week, especially tuesday as we are filming here that day.

We have a nightmare weekend ahead with the Newent Onion Fayre, a party coming to visit and an experience day as well. But the new gate in the carpark is going to work, we were worried that the gate posts might make it difficult for buses to get in so Jan phoned Youngs the bus company and they popped by before going to school and brought the biggest bus and it went through with no problems, it was so nice of them, so now we can concrete them in. We are having to put gates in because of idiots driving in at night and spinning round the carpark and screwing up the gravel. So I suspect that the gates will be a surprise!!

And talking of idiots we have had a second bird in from the Malvern area that has been shot, last year it was a Peregrine that recovered and was released, this time it is a Hobby, and idiot is the polite name for the $%XX!!!XX*** that did it. I hope it will recover and be releasable, it was hit in three places and will not be able to go until next year.